Just another WordPress.com site

Just because you are losing a battle or have lost some battles does not mean you have lost the war. Get on your knees, cry out for help, humbly examine your heart, ask for endurance, perseverance, wisdom, and gather those warriors around you to fight with and for you. The war is still yours to win

Each one of us when we are born is given a measure of authority. Part of that authority throughout our life is financial: each dollar we receive and then spend throughout our lives. Part is influential: who we choose to follow or be like, dress like, etc… We are super upset about the 1% in America that has 40% of the wealth, but they continue to have it because we give them it. Every time you watch a movie, go to a football game, watch a game, download the latest album, get an iPhone, buy some new pants, take Uber, get a credit card, watch cable, pop pills, buy weed, drink beer/liquor, use google, buy from amazon, post on Facebook, play a video game, etc, etc you are choosing to give your financial and influential authority in exchange for a temporary fix of entertainment and it’s going to the 1-10%.

There are things like crazy water and electric bills, insurance companies and the like that charge way more than needed to and we are legally obligated to pay/use their services. But most of the problems do not completely stand because of unjust systems, but because of a culture of people that want to exchange their wealth for products that do not reproduce wealth back, but simply entertain. Then after we give it away we now want the product and our money back.

We want free, we deserve it, we have the right to it, and to not work or have responsibility, but be entertained always for free. We want to be king of life with hard working servants that give to us. We want exactly what the 1% have. We are hypocrites.

You may say “I have grown up super poor and had nothing ever”. Ok let’s talk about the poor real quick. Now I’m talking about American poor here, not countries that have extreme poverty. For instance the average street peddler in my city make $150-200 on a full day of standing on the corner, tax free cash. I know this cause I know these guys and talk with them, plus there are also stats some students have done over the years. These friends of mine say they will usually do about 4-6 hours 4 or 5 times per week of standing on a street corner with a sign. I drove taxis here in Lane County for 2 years and I would talk with these guys/girls street peddling for money and many of them spend 80% or more on video poker, alcohol or drugs and choose to sleep on the street and use the free city or church services available to them for food, bed and clothing. On the low scale that’s $31,200 per year for not having a job or boss or anything. On the high scale $52,000 per year cash and tax free. Given away to the state lotto, owners of alcohol companies or drug dealers.

For those of us that are not street peddling we give our dollars to many luxuries that end up in that top 1-10% pockets. We spend about 50-80% of our money on things we do not need. How then do we solve the 1-10% of the wealth problem, if we are actually part of the problem?

So our options….

1- Pass laws that make these rich people, who start, create and own these services that entertain us and make us look cool or pretty, give us the money back that we have given to them.

Downside: this has happend through history and always ends up really bad, with a society in ruins and run by people that have no clue what they are doing, jobs dissappear and everyone is jobless and government gets overthrown, lots of people die, things have to reboot until a democracy starts up again with smart people who know how to build economy and the same people who were hated a generation ago are praised for building the new future that was torn down by their parents. It usually turns out the guy who lead the whole rebellion and talked the nation into it was just bitter and mad and actually didn’t have a plan.
Also it is a fact that Socialism and communism do not work no matter how equal they make everything seem in theory. It’s a theory that has never worked.
Plus it’s just wrong to buy something then force someone to give you more of their wealth because you want your money back after you took something they sold you or the experience you paid for is over.

2 – we go deeper down this rabbit hole and keep buying and complaining and obsessing over ourselves until we are depressed and lost beyond imagination. We eventually owe the 1-10% our lives because of the debt we obtained when we bought into their advertisements and continue to have just enough entertainment to keep us in a slight coma throughout life.

3 – we learn to control ourselves, live simple, buy local, be self controlled, garden, create, not be found wanting or needing everything, make our own music instead of buying it, create an idea or business and run it with honesty and integrity, seek God, treat each other well, treat employees well, spend time with each other instead of on the phone, ap, tv, video game, basketball game, etc,, create and cultivate creation and serve one another with our time and resources. Choose not to give all of our authority and money away.
Sounds like a pipe dream? Maybe, but it’s an awesome sound way of living life abundantly, but takes time, change, work and effort to be aware of how you can throw away your authority or create and cultivate glory, love, legacy, family, intimacy, friendship, life, ideas, peace, rest, etc, etc and it takes the love and power of God. The real God, not a man made idea or superstition.

But if you don’t care that you are giving your money and authority away then don’t complain, break the laws or change the laws to get it back from whomever you gave it to in exchange for whatever it was you wanted.

We are intensely relational beings. It is a fact. Doesn’t matter if you want it or not, you are going to turn out acting like, agreeing with, compromising beliefs, falling in love with, picking up characteristics of or being drawn to the people/person you spend the most time with. The good, the bad, the ugly, the passionate, luke warm, cold, lieing, cheating, serving, loving, mocking, careing, lazy, hard working, etc, etc… You and them are going to meet somewhere in the middle of who you are and who they are. You say and clearly do not think you will fall in love with them or their character, but you will eventually compromise and think you fell in love with them, if you hangout long enough. You will no longer be the you that you are today in a few years, but who you are in those few years (good, evil, like warm, passionate, etc) will be transformed into and by the person/people you are around and into someone more like them. All this is just the way we work, so we should be spending our time with people that are more like Jesus and less time around the people we do not want to become like. This does not mean that you do not teach, show love, serve, help, heal, etc… the broken, evil, wicked and lost, but I am saying you do not break bread with them, confide in them, marry them, spend your time getting advice from them, looking up to them. Your character, yes who you are and who you will become all depends on who you spend time with. Be like Jesus and confide in, get advice from, be taught by, spend your days with, break bread with the people who know, love, live like and follow Jesus as Lord and God. This big revelation now is that those people might be rich or poor, male or female, Jew or Gentile, Famous or not known, Carpenter or King, Homeless or a Real Estate Tycoon. That part no longer matters, because we are all on the same playing field because of what Jesus did. Your good deeds, your fathers name and worldly success are dirty rags to God, but because of Jesus you are His. Take care of each other, take in the poor ‘among you’, serve one another, love and honor those who manage God’s house and people, live differently then the world.

Best birthday celebration in the world. Love him or hate him you probably celebrate him. Everyone gets gifts for his birthday which is definitely his heart and style. Love him or hate him, believe in him or not, he still does love you and did create you. He came down from heaven and lived among us messed up humans and did the super natural to set himself apart from the crazy religious cult leaders and man made religion/belief system creators. Scholars are baffled by the historical evidence of his miracles and his name keeps getting greater despite the world hateing it and generation after generation trying to snuff it out of their cultures. Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. He is the reason for the biggest party of the year and the greatest exchange of gifts ever. Merry Christmas. – Ethan

In our culture most people spend money they don’t have, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t care about. Think about it, it’s a waste of a life. The question is how do you get free from wanting and wanting worship and praise from people? People who could care less about you and that you probably do not truly care about? How can your life, existence and your person really be significant without following the blind down a road of lifelong lies? Real love, not the emotional roller coaster, is what we all long for. To matter to someone that matters, someone who matters to us. To be significant and have value, real value. There is freedom. Freedom from this crazy race that you will never win and that leads you to despair, but it requires a complete turn around, some humility and recognizing the lies that you are being deceived by. It requires faith and knowing who made you and why you are here on earth. It requires knowing and recognizing the love of the one true God of all creation and what He has done thru Jesus Christ. He loves you and has a plan for you. Energy, a made up belief system, a man made god or a life of good deeds can do nothing for you, because they do not actually exist as a person, but the living God can show you He is real and change you to see your significance and to know you matter to both Him and to people that actually love you in word, action and emotion. I dare you to read the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to see why you exist. – Ethan Holub

We are worse than we ever feared and more loved than we have ever hoped or dreamed. This should make us bow low in worship and jump high for Joy.

Love does not equal tolerance. One of the greatest follies of our culture today is to think love equals tolerance. We want to be able to be selfish, live for ourselves, not change and still have everyone love and serve us as we are, forever. We think we deserve it because we are human. Self help and self love is self delusion. We cannot escape death and sin on our own from within ourself.

But God loves us humans, more than we ever dreamed.

God starts with tolerance, come as you are and however you are, but real love quickly moves from tolerance to transformation. It is impossible to love God and not be transformed by God, to become like and desire to be more like Him. Anyone whom you love you will become more like. If you are not being transformed then you have not known or misunderstood His love.

Its one thing to love your beloved, but its another thing to love your enemy and make them your beloved.

This is the Glory of God to all of creation: that His love and who He is is so different, powerful, great and awesome that He took us, His enemies as we were, and loved us so perfectly that we become His beloved. We change. Now we have been transformed and our desire is only for Him, God the Lord and Savior of all existence.

We become like Him, because of Him and for Him and this is also for us, because we become one with Him, united and His beloved.

In our culture we see ourselves as individual so our primary devotion is unto ourself. So we become very selfish.

Then we come up with some vision for our life according to what we think is greatness, usually according to something we have seen or been told.

We say “I want to be this, have this, do this, achieve or accomplish this.”

Then we devote our life to fulfilling our vision for ourselves.

We also judge ourselves and others as to how well we or they are fulfilling what we said is greatness according to our vision for our life.

This leads to false perspective or depression.

False perspectives comes when we see ourselves or others succeeding at our vision and think ourselves or others great.

If we fail at our vision for ourselves then we get depressed and insecure, sometimes leading to anger, drugs, suicide, etc…

Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest man born of a woman, yet John did not care about his own greatness or vision, he fulfilled his calling from God and had passion for God.

Passion for “self” is pride, Passion for “God” is humility.

We are called to be great, but greatness is not making our own vision for ourselves and others, it is knowing and fulfilling God’s calling on our lives and standing aside as He receives more glory from our lives.

There are two types of people on earth.

Those that reject God’s plan:

They make a vision for themselves and others and then judge themselves and others by how well they fulfill that vision.

They want the greatness of this world

They fear man and not God, pleasing man and the “rights” of man rather than what is right before God.

They want to have a lot of knowledge, but don’t want or care to do what is right.

They are focussed on how they look to others and not who they are in their hearts before their creator God.

They do not think they need to repent or ask for God’s forgiveness for their sin.

Those who accept God’s plan:

Want to be great in God’s eyes and seek out His calling on their life.

Understand true greatness before God

Fear God and not man

They not only want to have knowledge and wisdom, but they are passionate about dreaming up ways to serve and love the brokenhearted to bring God glory by the work, creation and cultivation of their hands and mind.

They care about who they are before God, rather than man, and change daily, through the Spirit of God’s power, because they want to be more like Jesus

They understand that they can never deserve or earn God’s favor, so they repent to make way for the Lord Jesus to come into their heart and let His sacrifice on the cross bring them righteousness before God.

They love Jesus as Lord and Savior

Let us desire to be great before God and in His eyes as John the Baptist did. – Ethan Holub